My dirty life and times.

May 2008

May 27, 2008

What is about Tom Wilkinson that allows him to move from the old, sun-spotted, strangely-haired political cynic of the American 18th century to a pin-striped version of the same - sans all wisdom and humanity - circa November, 2000? Wilkinson's Ben Franklin in John Adams was mottled, debauched and wise whereas his James Baker is simply mottled, but a snarling mongoose of a political killer nonetheless in Recount, the costume drama twin to the revolutionary mini-series - and certainly a moral counterpart to the founders' idealism. Bewigged in both, Wilkinson is HBO's type-cast back room boy at both the glorious founding and the immoral political drama of eight years ago.

Yet, as good as Recount is - and it is very well done - it carries a kind of phantom, lost-limbed agony for Democrats. We thought we'd excised that bit of gangrene long ago, but damn if it doesn't feel both amazingly recent and strangely prescient. The long and painful loss of 2000 and the short and painful loss of 2004. Gore, now beloved but then befuddled in a cloud of arrogance and Clinton regret. His team in Florida led by Bill Daley from the Chicago machine and the legal eminence of Warren Christopher - both of them bringing pea-shooters to a knife fight. Four years later, there is Kerry losing by the grace of Ohio's swing-state working class whites. Two races that should have been won.

Jump ahead and we're still talking about Florida and its strange ways, always failing Democrats and tripping over its own political feet. Then, the purple state working class, still on our minds, still crucial in Ohio, and Pennsylvania and Michigan. Two razor thin races, and now a third - this time within our own party. This time, we're split, and it's becoming increasingly clear that the followers of the near-winner don't care any more about the loyalists of the near-loser in their own party than Jim Baker cared for polite debate in Florida. Lance Mannion took on the Obama bloggers's sheer dismissal of the other half of their own party in stern fashion today:

...it's not simply the case that 15 to 16 million people don't like
Barack Obama or like Hillary "for whatever reasons"---as opposed to all
those Obama supporters for whom liking has nothing to do with their
decisions; their votes are based entirely on their having read all the
position papers and come to the only rational conclusions, neverminding
their personal feelings about either candidate.

It's the case that millions of people think she would be the better President.

Almost exactly the same number as think that Barack Obama would be better.

Those people don't understand why their votes should be dismissed
out of hand as if they mattered as little as the votes Mike Gravel's
going to get in the fall.

It feels like a typically ham-handed Democratic move, frankly. As does the rush to find reasons why Hillary Clinton should not share the ticket with Barack Obama, and the roadblocks to counting election votes in the same state that cost Al Gore in 2000, and the big push to get Clinton to drop out the race before the convention - the very first time in history such a resignation from the playing field with that much support will ever have occurred.

There's a willful disregard for political reality in both the Obama camp and among his most ardent followers. Just go away is the snarling consensus toward Senator Clinton and her husband, the still widely-popular 42nd President of the United States. And to the rest of us who have supported the Clinton campaign, the message is just as blunt: get in line.

It's nasty, sure - a kind of salt in the wound strategy, I guess. But more important, it's as clueless as Daley and Christopher in Florida - especially when you consider how wounded so many women voters are by the sexist nature of the media coverage of this campaign. Over at FireDogLake, Jane Hamsher cooks up a strategy that just might work for John McCain - carefully and respectfully cultivate Democratic women who backed Senator Clinton:

I was watching a clip of Geraldine Ferraro on Fox News
the other day, and the ground is definitely being tested for an appeal
to Hillary's female supporters who think she's been done wrong. (We'll
leave aside the supreme irony of the very architects of the
anti-Clinton narrative playing the collective role of Sir Galahad
here.) I watched the clip and thought "you know, if the Clinton exit
isn't orchestrated well and I'm John McCain, I go straight for the
women."

Like Lance, I'm not on the Obama circus train yet, but I'll happily climb aboard before it leaves this particular station on the way to November. But as the fierce back and forth on this blog and many others shows clearly, there are many committed Democratic women (and men, I am reminded in comments) who may never board that train. And if McCain adopts the Hamsher plan - and the Obama campaign continues its tone-deafness toward Clinton supporters - it may be time to get Tom Wilkinson into makeup again. With the right bit of artistry he could play Senator McCain in the latest installment of what has become quite the long-running horror series for the Democratic Party.

May 26, 2008

The ghosts of American soldierswander the streets of Balad by night,unsure of their way home, exhausted,the desert wind blowing trashdown the narrow alleys as a voicesounds from the minaret, a soulful callreminding them how alone they are,how lost. And the Iraqi dead,they watch in silence from rooftopsas date palms line the shore in silhouette,leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

- From Here, Bullet, a collection of poems written by Brian Turner, who served for seven years in the U.S.
Army. Beginning in November 2003, he was an infantry team leader in
Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

May 25, 2008

When I was a cub scout back in 1971, our pack got a call from the regional headquarters. Big news. The biggest. President Nixon was due to come through town in his motorcade and dedicate the new veteran's memorial up on the Post Road. We would be part of the official honor guard, turned out in our blue uniforms and bearing the colors. It was a die-hard Republican town, and I remember quite vividly the massive turn-out for Nixon. I'd like to say I also recall how the people who waved their flags that day hated the war protests and the counter-culture movement, but that would be stretching a point: my nine-year-old powers of observation weren't so socially acute. What I saw was a great surging, adoring crowd that almost ran down a bunch of scouts in their zest to get closer to President Nixon.

And I remember is his gray, unsmiling face as he rose through the roof of his limousine - and how some hidden switch seemed to turns on the broad grin and raise both hands puppet-like in a that characteristic double V-for-victory pose. Then we were merely trampled underfoot.

Recalling Nixon through the rear-view mirror with Watergate stamped into the chrome, we tend to remember the defeated Final Days President, the broken man and his comeback on David Frost. But the Nixon I saw for that brief moment - and the Nixon portrayed in Rick Perlstein's terrific Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, was a vibrant politician at the pinnacle who connected with the masses, carving an electorally successful path between the feuding liberal Democrats and their crippling war and the growing right wing class anger of Goldwater and Reagan. That's the Nixon you see on the cover of Nixonland.

I'm about five chapters into Perlstein's satisfying reader, and he brings back all that feeling of Nixon's utter dominance of the political landscape from LBJ's sad sunset to his own long and dramatic tragedy. And along the way, the characters are dreamily compelling to this child (literally) of the 60s - and amazingly current as well. You'll find traces of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and John McCain in Nixonland, and you'll discover bits of this presidential race as well. The set pieces remain so very much the same on the stage of our cultural landscape - it's almost scary how little we've changed.

May 21, 2008

No doubt my junk mail filters have been working diligently, so I haven't received one of those vile and false emails spreading lies about Barack Obama's family and record - no, I had to read them in a report today from Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin in The Politico. This is a classic softening up campaign months before Obama is likely to face John McCain, and it's aimed at sowing doubt about his patriotism. The Clinton supporters who gather here should condemn this kind of behavior, since it's been used against Hillary for years. Here's one of the quotes the emails have been circulating:

“There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a
symbol of oppression. And the
anthem itself conveys a war-like message.”

Of course, Obama never said it. And he didn't take the oath of office on the Koran, either. But these emails have become exceedingly viral in the worst sense of the word. The only way to fight back is to condemn them loudly - and correct anyone you hear repeating one of these cowardly whispers.

Great night for progressive policy last evening, as the Drum Major Institute gathered its friends and supporters at Cipriani's shiny 23rd Street cavern. David Simon, writer and creator of HBO's brilliant The Wire, was the headliner and he hit his marks on the first take: "If you want to watch this election and find out what anyone thinks about housing policy or cities or No Child Left Behind, short of the most grandiose statements -- knowledge is good, education is good, everyone should have housing -- it is a vacuum. We elect people in a vacuum." Here's more:

Also receiving honors were NYC Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito and PowerPAC.org founder Steve Phillips - just after the fab DMI video starring Andrea Batista-Schlesinger, who was sleek and non-partisan (she tweaked Obama and McCain). Obama-Clinton discussions were kept at a whisper in the corners, and no one came to blows - though potential mayor opponents Bill Thompson and Christine Quinn added a certain electoral tension to the air around the bar (Dawn Barber agreed with me). DMI being the world's best-wired think tank, bloggers abounded: Lindsay Beyerstein wore two hats - photographer and netroots committee member, and handled both chores with aplomb. HuffPo regular Naomi Wolf, techPresident co-founder Andrew Rasiej, and the prolific Lance Mannion made the scene. Live Bait barely survived the after-party libations as Jason Chervokas tucked into his chicken-friend steak, Bruce Bernstein argued about Ernie Banks and the shortstop's trade policy, the Village Voice's Roy Edroso dished some Mets dirts and Julia from Sisyphus Shrugged (and her whip-smart daughter) recalled the good old days of united Democratic blogging back in November, 2006. Ah yes.

May 18, 2008

And not in a good way. I was watching the beginning of this video and began to recognize the words, so I thought I'd share it. While I'll enthusiastically support Senator Obama against Senator McCain this fall should he finally prevail over Senator Clinton, I believe he must speak - and soon - about the preponderance of rank sexism we've seen during this campaign. Undoubtedly, it will be the subject of many histories; indeed, the images from this video would make a sad but necessary exhibit on hate speech for the right curator. When my book is finally done (I'm in the final stages and sweating mightily), I'll try and turn back to this difficult subject in more depth. But I thought the video would start a conversation.

May 15, 2008

Just when we started to believe there was no elder statesman who could unite the Democratic Party in this perilous hour, along comes our brave President. In Israel, he alone took command of the moment and brought the Clinton and Obama campaigns together:

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator
declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this
might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is
— the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly
discredited by history.

Ah, and there was Senator Clinton leaping to defend Senator Obama, whose prospects President Bush's Knesset jibe were designed to injure:

President Bush’s comparison of any Democrat to Nazi appeasers is both
offensive and outrageous on the face of it, especially in light of his
failures in foreign policy. This is the kind of statement that has no
place in any presidential address and certainly to use an important
moment like the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel to make a
political point seems terribly misplaced. Unfortunately, this is what
we’ve come to expect from President Bush.

May 14, 2008

I'll admit it, the so-called end-game in this long Democratic nomination battle is beginning to confuse me. Let's see if we can get it all down. Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee, favored in that status by national magazine cover stories. Yet no one has told the voters: either in West Virginia, where poor laggard Hillary Clinton (attacked by rabies-infected "Democrats") could barely pull off a 41-point squeaker, nor in the general party populace, where Democrats overwhelmingly want her to stay in the race till the conclusion. They also want her to be the Vice-Presidential nominee, should she come up short. Or form a third party and keep running. Yet there was John Edwards - waiting, waiting, waiting - till after the poorest state in the nation voted to announce that Obama is his man on poverty, and has been ever since they did their manly two-step on Hillary's head in October. Does it mean Edwards wants to be on the ticket? And does it mean the Presumptive Twins will knock off the evil sister - today abandoned in grimy opportunistic fashion by the leadership of a major women's rights group to the outrage of its membership - in 'Ole Kentucky next week? Finally, what's the truth in the rumor that Obama greeted Edwards as "sweetie" when his private jet brought the poor people's campaign to the mass rally in Michigan? It all makes my head spin with weariness - next you'll try and tell me Al Giordano's a Mets fan. Go ahead, blow my mind.

May 12, 2008

Question: Do I agree that Hillary Clinton is a racist and why haven't I disavowed, renounced and rebuked her?

Answer:
No I do not think she is a racist and I haven't disavowed, renounced
and rebuked her for the same reason I didn't disavow, deplore and
rebuke Barack Obama for saying that white working class voters cling to
God and guns because they are bitter.

Why? Because they are ridiculous, MSM-style trumped up controversies.

Candidates
speak imprecisely from time to time, particularly during presidential
campaigns which are superhuman, exhausting efforts. They are human
beings and they get tired.

[snip]

Again, do I think Clinton should have said what she said? Of course
not. I'm sure she agrees. Neither do I think that Barack Obama was
happy with himself for saying that voters he needs to win in the fall
are bitter. Partisans on both sides may think each of these candidates
are racists or snobs, but neither of them are stupid. Both Clinton and
Obama were clumsily repeating observations they'd heard, oh --- a million times --- about"what the white working class voter really wants." It's a non-stop topic among the gasbags...

May 08, 2008

We've heard a lot about arcane Democratic Party rules this primary season, so much esoterica about punishing swing states, credentials committees, and wild apportionment. But I'd never heard the most important rule of all in the DNC playbook: you know, the one that proclaims the race is over when Tim Russert declares.

It reminds me of the halcyon days for Democrats in November 2000, when
Russert used his little marking board to show us "the math" and declare
that Gore needed to bow out for the good of the country. Good times.

Now, the race may indeed be in its final stages (though I believe there are scenarios that could see this through to the convention) and Senator Hillary Clinton did not get her hoped-for, longshot double shotgun blast Tuesday night, but listening to the media's big shove - Hillary must go! - that's now in its fourth or fifth iteration, I was reminded of the words of the prescient Peter Daou, Hillary's Internet director. Must've been a year ago when Peter told me - and I paraphrase - the media primary is the primary.

Consider: Obama's lead is only slightly more than it was before last night, though it now gets the modifier "commanding" routinely dropped before it by the media hounds - history-blind fools who can't recall Teddy Kennedy taking it all the way to the convention trailing by 750 delegates. Tracy Russo, who suffered through hours of MSNBC the other night (I watched Joba Chamberlain blow one to the Indians instead), detected the same strong whiff of sexism that has suffused major media coverage of Clinton for a year.

I wonder what we’ll see when we have time to remove ourselves from the
daily grind of this campaign and look back at the way in which the
media influenced this election and our public discourse around the
candidates. Will it be as obvious then, as it is to me now, how
entrenched and acceptable the misogyny spewed daily has become? Will we
be able to look back and say that there was something quite unnatural
about the level of hatred so many had for Hillary Clinton? Will we ever
be able to understand why?

Tracy's post was spot on and she correctly identified one of this long campaign's historic legacies. Over in his lair, Lance Mannion contemplated the political junkie's dream of a real convention - before dismissing it, because clearly the media won't allow it to transpire:

A floor fight would make great theater but lousy television. What would look like democracy in all its glory in action to
political junkies like me would look to most normal people like a great
big sleep-depriving mess. And the convention is not going to be
covered on TV by the likes of Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley, who
would have enjoyed the fun and been careful and smart about explaining
what was going on down there on the floor and backstage. It's going to
be covered by Tim Russert and Brian Williams and Charles Gibson and the
gasbags from Fox News and MSNBC, all of whom will gleefully tell us how
bad all this looks and how it shows the Democrats at their divided,
divisive, disorganized, discombobulated, indecisive, internecine worst.

My Dirty Life & Times

Tom Watson is a journalist, author, media critic, entrepreneur and consultant who has worked at the confluence of media technology and social change for more than 20 years. This long-running blog is my personal outlet - an idiosyncratic view of the world. "My dirty life and times" is a nod to the late, great Warren Zevon because some days I feel like my shadow's casting me.